Though Plumeria Dude and I aren’t having a traditional wedding party, we are having my adorable niece serve as the flower girl. She just turned two, and she is about the most adorable child I have ever laid eyes on.

Taken by my sister-in-law

Too cute, right? At first I considered a very traditional flower girl look. Something like this, or one that could be accented with a hot pink sash.

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As most of you know by now from my previous Destination Wedding entry, my wedding is being held in Cartagena, Colombia.  Planning a destination wedding is tons of fun even though it is a bit stressful.

This has taken a lot of planning and thinking ahead of time.  I want my little Magnolia Dude and I to have our dream wedding, but I also know a lot of our guests are making a big effort by traveling there to be with us. I understand the worry and stress of traveling to another country, especially one where they speak a different language, so I have taken all that into consideration and made sure that I make this as easy as possible not only for myself but for them.

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The first thing we did after getting engaged (well, other than announcing it to everyone) was try to figure out where we wanted to get married. Both Lotus Dude and I live in the Washington, DC area. I have friends that married here and I had already done some research on wedding planning in this area, so it seemed like an obvious choice. However, none of our family lives in this area. Lotus Dude’s parents live in Atlanta and mine live in Ohio. We never really considered getting married in Atlanta as his parents were fine with having the wedding in DC.

My parents, however, are another story. It is traditional in Hindu culture for the bride’s family to host the wedding and the ceremony is generally held in their hometown. My mom kept asking how she was supposed to plan things in D.C. I explained that I would plan everything, but she was not too happy with it.

Of course, things rarely go as initially planned. Lotus Dude and I began to look at venues in the D.C. area and were shocked at the high prices. I knew that it would be more expensive than other parts of the country, but I was still not prepared. So we began to contemplate getting married in Ohio and discovered that most things were around half the price in Columbus as in DC. Yes, that’s right, half. It just made more sense to have the wedding in Columbus. Of course, my parents have agreed to do much of the legwork. So far, it hasn’t been too difficult planning a wedding in Ohio while living in DC. We have crammed as muh as possible into our trips to Columbus, and things are proceeding right on schedule. Hopefully that’s how they continue to go.

From http://flickr.com/photos/candescence/2763831460/

After we got engaged, one of the first unknowns hanging over Plumeria Dude and me was choosing where to hold the wedding. It’s harder than it sounds; I grew up in Florida but only a few family members still live there. The rest are scattered across the US along with many of our friends. Plumeria Dude’s family is largely concentrated in Maryland. And we’d been living in Atlanta for the majority of our relationship.

His parents, of course, pressed for Maryland. Mine voted for Florida. And Plumeria Dude and I argued for an Atlanta wedding– midway between our families, easily accessible and convenient to plan. To add to the confusion, around the time of our engagement, our families were going through some health and job-related issues that made planning a year in advance difficult at best.

After much back and forth, we ended up choosing Florida, but going with Islamorada instead of my hometown. That meant we’d signed on for a destination wedding and all the inherent joys and difficulties.

How did you choose your wedding location?

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Hello fellow brides and married ladies! I am super psyched to be joining the BridalBuds community as a blogger. I chose plumeria because it’s a lush, tropical flower that is in keeping with the destination wedding in the Florida Keys that Plumeria Dude and I are planning.

I’m a former journalist who’s now working in public relations. I grew up in Florida, went to college in Texas and now call Atlanta home. I love scouring the ‘net for wedding inspiration, bargains (it’s almost a competitive sport for me) and interaction with my fellow brides. I can’t wait to share the results with all of you!

I would call myself an organized yet quirky bride. I want nothing more than our guests to enjoy a sweet ceremony and reception with fun elements, good food and an awesome dance party!

So I will tell you a little bit about my story and how I decided to have my wedding in a different country. When I became engaged, all images of that perfect wedding I had ever dreamed of came into my mind. I knew what I wanted, and it was something very special, classy, and beautiful and something my family and guests would remember but most importantly something my honey and I would cherish forever.

I live in Miami and my first thought was to search venues on the beach…. after all we do have beautiful mansions, museums, convention centers, etc…I found a couple but was in shock at the cost! I continued my search anyways and continued raising my budget.

Soon I realized I was way over budget and that I’d have to scratch things off my list. But this isn’t a good feeling… I AM that girl who has dreamed of a wedding since I was a little kid… and to think that I was going to have to restrain myself from everything I wanted was not what I had planned.

And suddenly…. the word of wisdom spoke into my ear… my mom! She said to me: “have you considered having your wedding in Colombia? You know you’d be able to do it all and more for 1/5th of the cost…”.

I am after all from Colombia and I have a lot of family and friends there. I was a bit skeptical because my fiance is American and his family has never even travelled outside of the US. My mom offered to go there, find out about the whole shebang and prepare a budget for me.

Soon we realized the wedding of my dreams would be possible in Colombia for under 10k Including plane tickets! And that’s how I made my decision… and amazingly my fiance was super excited and so were his parents.

We had traveled to Cartagena to visit last year and we had both fallen in love with this city… it is an amazing city, different from anything we had ever seen anywhere in the world. It’s full of romance, nice friendly people, the most beautiful hotels and the best restaurants.

As usual, my mom always offers to do it all herself… but after her first visit she realized that planning a wedding, in a different country, and just with a month at a time, would be a challenge…. so a friend of ours recommended a very well known wedding planner, who specializes in Cartagena weddings…. we hired her and since then the process has been nothing but fun. Yes, if you have a wedding in Colombia you can even afford the wedding planner. heheheh!

She heard my story, my ideas, my dreams and helped me chose the venue… an old colonial theater that has been restored and now is a wedding venue… but inside it still looks like a theater.

Teatro Heredia

Teatro Heredia inside - ceremony is held here

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I’m so excited to be a part of this wonderful blog!

First I’ll tell you a little about myself… I’m originally from Bogota, Colombia. I lived there until 1992 when I moved to Miami, FL and have been here since then. My friends say that I’m a very loving and caring person but I also tend to be a little bit “controlling”! Which is usually the case because I love to plan things ahead of time and make sure everything turns out perfect, and on schedule!

I’m known as the “planner” of our group… from planning surprise parties, dinner parties, get togethers, movie nights, to group travel.

So as you can imagine, I’ve had nothing but fun planning my wedding… although I keep trying not to control my bridesmaids too much and I’m doing my best not to become a bridezilla!

My fiancé and I met through very weird circumstances… well, weird to some Our entire story is on our website which I created through www.weddingwire.com.

He has been great trying to keep up with my change of moods… we all know how this process can be and how much our fiancés love to plan weddings

Our wedding will be in Cartagena, Colombia this coming May 24, 2009….at an old colonial Theater called Teatro Heredia.

Teatro Heredia

I hope to be able to contribute great information to all the brides-to-be. I have been planning my wedding for over 5 months and have another 5 or so to go… I look forward to sharing my journey with you.